Bubbles Party: Triple Cremes and High Heels

Bubbles Party: Triple Cremes and High Heels

Last Saturday, we had a Bubbles Party where I work where we invited representatives from top Champagne, Cava, Prosecco, and Sparkling producers to pour our guests their wares. The night was superb, and it might have been our best attended event. The party equation went something like this:
12 different sparklings + triple creme cheese + popcorn + salt and pepper crinkled potato chips + Bubbles Party music such as Otis Redding and Dimitrou from Paris -$5 off the admission price if you dressed fabulously.
The best dressed guests received a prize bottle of champagne, and the decision was very hard because everyone looked good. Really good. Finally after much deliberation, we gave the prize bottle to a group where one couple was dressed in Indian formal wear (see pictures below), and the other couple looked like they came straight from the 1940's.
Due to photo uploading capacity, the pictures from this night are posted here and in the below posts.
Ching Ching! (Portuguese toast)
Examples of what super bubbles we poured are pictured above. In honor of this night, I'm including below a song by an artist named Champagne, and Chris Rock's intense music video, "Champagne." Enjoy.

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Pork berry vs. pork belly

CORRECTION: On my last post I wrote that Bar Tartine served pork berry with squid. Not true; it was pork BELLY with squid. Pork berries are not ripe this time of year. Please excuse my mishap and any confusion this may have caused.

Bar Tartine Night Out: I’m Smitten

Bar Tartine Night Out: I’m Smitten

A couple nights ago, my husband and I celebrated our anniversary in San Francisco, checking out the fabbbbbbulous Joseph Cornell retrospective at Moma, walking here and there, and finally eating dinner at Bar Tartine. It was a great night. I love Joseph Cornell’s (link included below), I always appreciate my ability to walk (look ma, no hands), but more importantly, I’m a Bar Tartine Fanatic, and so is he.
Some people make the inaccurate statement that we're obsessed with Bar Tartine. This is a completely narrow take on it all, for we also lay up nights with tingly tummy feelings thinking of Tartine Bakery, Bar Tartine’s sister. It’s really the entire Tartine family that gives us butterflies and makes us feel, well, a little naughty. Those butter-laden croissants. Those fresh gnocchi. That crispy pork belly. Oh.
And, ever since I went to Bar Tartine for the first time with my bachelorette party girls, if a special ocassion arises that calls for us to leave the East Bay, we tend to head to Bar Tartine. In fact, we remind me of this elderly couple who always use to come into a restaurant where I worked and refused to try anything but their standard dish. They knew that they loved that dish and they didn’t want to be disappointed. Every week they came in and ordered the same two plates. Again and again, regardless of the marvelous concoctions just added to the menu.
They annoyed the hell out of me. Alas, now we are them. We just go there. Tartine never disappoints, and we return to be charmed, eat things that most people don’t want to cook at home (sweatbreads or croissants, anyone), and drink delicious wine. A cooks paradise.
And thus commences an exploration of our wine and food pairings.

First courses:
“Local squid and pork belly with egg salad, potato croutons and herb vinaigrette”
w/Non vintage J. Lassalle Champagne, premier cru, France

“Crispy sardines with haricot verts, friese, picked scallions, romesco, aioli and olive vinaigrette”
05 Di Giovanna Grillo, Sicilia

Yes, it was amazing. First of all, champagne has powers ( see November's "Breakfast Wines" Post ) that never fail to impress me. This first dish was gorgeous, lush, and ..... fatty. And the champagne cut right through that. It amplified the different textures, the crispy squid tentacles and seared pork belly, but cushioned the lusher bits of the dish such as the soft belly fat and the tender squid. But best of all, the champagne smelled like cocoa nibs. Fabulous.
Next, the Grillo, a grape used widely in Sicily, was perfect with the sardines. Would you believe that this was the first time I’ve ever tried fresh sardines? The good Scandinavian she is, my mother would eat sardines straight from the can when I was young, but I never developed a taste for them and hence steered away from other varieties of the fish. But I was wrong and I take it back. They were so sweet! The Grillo was so juicy and fresh, and it and the sardines just POPPED together. Seafood and Italian whites, sigh. The champagne was just okay with this.

Second course:
“Prather Ranch lamb with roasted peppers, eggplant, chickpea fritter, yogurt and Moroccan spices”
04 Clos Montirius Vacqueyras, Rhone Valley, France

“Braised veal cheeks with pumpkin agnolotti, broccoli di cicco, baby turnips, and cocoa nib gremolata”
Anna Maria Abbona Dolcetto, Piedmont

First lesson- Rhone blends, often expressed as GSM’s –Grenache, Sryah, Mouvedre grapes, are great for dishes with exotic spices. Great with Harissa, Morrocan flavors, even curry. They're burly enough to take their big flavors on. This was no exception. Everything melded perfectly.
The second dish was heavenly too. Dolcetto has got to be one of the juiciest grapes in all of Italy, and this one was all fruit, all the time, and it highlighted the fresh and bright flavors in the dish, and got cozier with the sultrier flavors of the cheeks and pumpkin. Easy drinking.

Here are a few links that I think you may enjoy.
P.S. I made an Amazon store link to my favorite cooking things online after some people have asked me my practical preferences. The Tartine Bakery book is on it!


Link: Joseph Cornell

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My friend's blog

I just found out that two friends of mine have started a wine and food blog and wanted to share it with ya'll. The marred couple lives in Seattle and he is a chef at a local cooking school and she's clerking for a judge before she reaches lawyerdom. It's a fun site, and has some great shots of my friend with a goofy grin on his face while he's making sausage. And then there's the shot of he and his fiends breaking down an entire pig. Good stuff.

My friend's blog:

winewall.blogspot.com

BBQ Potato Chips and Chateau D'Oupia: A Pleasant Party Pairing

Today's writing will divulge one of my most riveting and haute wine-food pairings experiences, ever. Consider yourselves very lucky, for this is a high level secret that will likely never be explored in the wine press. It's only discussed among professionals. That’s what I overhead, anyway.
First, a little background: my husband and I moved to a new apartment recently. As I'm sure many of you have discovered, moving, unpacking, and the process of trying to find where the only sharp knife was packed does not inspire culinary production. In fact, it quickly instigates mass consumption of fast and/or convenience food. I don’t want to cook when I’ve been packing boxes all day, and my husband doesn’t want to cook after watching my unpack boxes all day. Its so tiring. We can’t find the fridge.
Now, fast or convenience food (otherwise known as “junk”) is the type of food that I try not to introduce too often into my diet. Sadly, the reasons for this choice have less to do with health and more to do with my addictive eating habits. I'll just come out and say it: I am a chip junkie. And a cheeto junkie. And a cheese puff addict. In short, if a huge bag of leftover chips are sitting in the kitchen cabinet from our first meal in the house, they're going down. I just don't stop. I try to keep them out of the house.
Yet sometimes their addictive delicious, salty crunch gets through the door, and my will power goes out. The result of such a time is this fantastic pairing:
KFC BBQ chips and Chateau d'Oupia wine
KFC BBQ chips, are well, very salty and sweet and habit forming, and Chateau d'Oupia is one of my favorite under $15 bottle of wines composed of Syrah, Carignon and Grenache (typical Rhone Valley inspired blend). Note to readers: the Minervois, Langedoc region produces some of the best reds sold for the least money in your local wine shop. They’re often, as is the Oupia, smoky, brooding, peppery, and stock full of dark lush berry fruit.
Now, I had the chips with a deli sandwich. But the magic was really the Oupia and the chips together. I like to think its because, like the chips, the Oupia is smokey, a touch sweet, and spicy. True, the Oupia’s flavors come from oak and the grape, and not chemical enhancers like the BBQ chips, but that’s not stopping the match made in America. Superb. Dangerous. The perfect excuse to crash a frat party with fine wine.

Thanksgiving Wine Pairings

The following is my latest contribution to newsletter at the wine shop/bar where I work, entirely focused on wines for the upcoming holiday, and mostly kind-of autobiographical.



On the last Thursday of November (this year I’ve chosen to mark the event a week earlier), I like to take a little time to express gratitude for the things around me that I love. Wine, cheese, certain foods, friends, my parent’s small white dog, and various members of my family, for example. My mother has endearingly named this event “Thanksgiving,” and to express reverence for my thoughtfulness, she invites the family over to enjoy a lovely late-fall inspired dinner while listening to my speech of gratitude.

At these dinners my mother roasts a stuffed turkey and makes a beautiful gravy. My Aunt Edna makes a spiced sweet potato dish with large doses of nutmeg, ginger and marshmallows. My father makes seasoned cream and butter, into which he stirs a cooked potato or two. I make green beans with almonds and garlic, and my cousins make cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie for dessert.

My tribute meal is always superb, and every year, I have the honor of matching the wines to this spice-laden, butter-adorned seasonal dinner. I would highly recommend such a dinner event to anyone. It’s a wonderful excuse to eat turkey, eat spiced sweet potatoes, share time with your family, and of course, sip some of the loveliest wines, the types of which I’ll divulge below.

For whites, the lush consistency, spices, and sometimes even tartness of the meal calls for aromatic, spicy, sultry, full-bodied wines, or even whites with a little residual sugar to soothe the big flavors. A Gewürztraminer would certainly hit the spot, as would a Riesling or dry Muscat. Oaky whites are also welcome at this table, because, after all, what goes better with creamy, buttery food than creamy, nutty, or (dare I say) buttery wine? In general, I stay away from leaner, acidity-driven wines, since foods of gratitude really just want a little full-bodied loving to cushion their tart, spicy, or creamy character.

Of course you’ll also need some reds. Luckily, turkey is a generous, accommodating bird that is often happy with whatever red you offer. A key guideline for determining what varietal(s) to serve with your turkey is to consider the stuffing that you will pair with the meal. If you’ll be serving a heavier stuffing, say with garlic and sausage, chose a darker wine that’s heavy on the fruit and spicy, like a Zinfandel or Rhône blend (Syrah, Grenache, Mouvedre based). On the other hand, an apple and sage or classic bread stuffing might pair better with a lighter red, a Pinot Noir for example.

Below is a list of a few of the wines that I will be eyeing for my Thanksgiving table. I hope that you find some of them to your liking, and if you do, certainly give me a shout out when making your speech in front of your family.

Aromatic Whites:
06 Elena Walsh Kastelaz Gewürztraminer, Alto Adige, Italy: lychee, rose, ginger, dry.
06 Diel de Diel, Nahe, Germany: pear-like, gingery Pinot Blanc and Gris with a touch of flowery Riesling.
06 Ca’ del Solo Dry Muscat, Monterey, CA : heady, spicy, scents. Full-bodied.
05 Movia Ribolla Gialla, Brda, Slovenia : peach, mint thick, rounded.



Nutty, Toasty, Full-Bodied Whites:
05 Gainey Chardonnay, Santa Rita Hills, CA : like a caramel apple sprinkled with nuts
04 Domaine Bernard Millot “La Goutte D’Or” Meursault 1er Cru, Burgundy, France: creamy, minerally poached pear.

Lighter Reds:
06 Evesham Wood Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, OR : earthy, bright cherry

Darker Reds:
05 Eric Texier Brézème, Côtes du Rhône, France : all syrah, all blueberry and bacon
05 Lamborn Family Zinfandel, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain, CA : plush, dark fruit with a touch of spice.
05 Noceto “Original Grandpere Vineyard” Zinfandel, Sierra Foothills, CA : deep, soulful, old-vine berries

Oaky Chardonnays: A Wonderful Excuse to Eat Cream or Butter

I used to have a wine prejudice.

When I say “used to,” I mean that I’m reaching the eleventh step of my program; I have cooked food and paired it with an oaked Chardonnay.

Oak has always been somewhat an issue for me with wine. In general I like oak. It does the things with wines that most of us favor- it adds a touch of vanilla, spice, nuttiness or even chocolate. But if overused, it can nearly ruin a wine. In short, it can provoke a wine to start smelling like a wood chip, or in the case of the extremely oak-sensitive Chardonnay, the original flavor of Cornuts. Perhaps needless to say, this can make for a difficult wine and food pairing.

Because such a wine can be so hard to pair with food, in the past, I have avoided answering questions about what to eat with an oaky Chardonnay. Or rather, I told people that such a Chardonnay was best paired with a sunset and a deck chair. In fact, while co-teaching a recent wine class at work I quoted the old standby pairings spouted by Chardonnay geeks- corn soup, scallops with cream sauce, ya da ya da- but then finished my round-up by referring to one particularly oaky Chardonnay as “an after-work, before or after dinner wine- not good with food.”

Then, a couple weeks later, I paired a dinner to an oaky Chardonnay left over from the wine bar, and I loved it.

Winos often say that oak loves fat. I do too, so you’d think that I would have opened up my heart earlier to an oaky Chardonnay (and by oaky, I don’t mean super oaky to the point of smelling like a cedar chip). But before my turning point meal, I had never really tasted such a wine with a good, lush (aka, fatty) meal. I had always tried it as cocktail wine, which I still dislike.

But my heard turned when a couple nights ago when I paired the remnants of a bottle of Chardonnay with a whole lot of butter.

In honor of Halloween, I cooked a squash and fall inspired meal. Frisee and persimmon salad for the first course and butternut squash and leek ravioli with a browned butter and sage sauce to follow.

The browned butter was what convinced me that the Chardonnay heads were right about the grape liking fat. Case in point: I have to had browned at least half a cube of butter for the sauce, and the caramel, nutty notes imparted to the wine by oak mimicked the same flavors in the butter, and dare I be so staright-forward, tasted awesome with the butter fat. Furthermore, I learned that Chardonnay loves foods that even sound like fat, or butter, like butternut squash. The oak just gave the buttery goods a big hug.



Lastly, a cooking hint- making ravioli at home so you can have something to put tons of butter on is super easy to do. Just buy the won-ton wrappers in the refrigerated section marked “Asian foods” in your grocery store instead of buying or making pasta sheets. Then, make a simple filling, and plop about a half-teaspoon to a teaspoon of it in the center of a won-ton square. Dab the square lightly with water from the filling to the edge of the sheet, lay another wrapper over the filling, and press the new square into the old one until all air bubbles have been released and the two wrappers are stuck to each other. To cook, place in lightly boiling water in a shallow pan for about five minutes. Then drain, and pour browned butter all over it. Or maybe a creamy, garlicky sauce instead. Because Chardonnay likes cream too.

Halloween Pre Dinner Post

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

I'll be posting about my fall-Halloween themed meal that I'll be cooking up tonight shortly, but in the meantime, here are two awesome food sites that have some great posts today.
P.S. you might have to cut and paste because I'm still a somewhat inept linking blogger)

The Cupcake Bakeshop:
She held a competition for cupcakes and people submitted things as super-duper as "Arroz con Leche Cupcakes" to "Pumpkin Chili Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Pumpkin Brittle." Wow. See the results and recipes here: (
http://cupcakeblog.com/

David Lebovitz: A former Chez Panisse pastry chef living in France talks about Halloween in Paris.
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/


Cheers!

A little Diversion

I'm been trying very hard to be disciplined with my posts, doing such things as slapping myself across my knuckles with a ruler when it has been more than a week since I've written, or scripting "I will be timely with my writing" on the chalkboard I've installed in our living room to get the point across. but since I know that I won't have time to give a normal post because we're moving from one apartment to another this week, I'm leaving the following for you for wine entertainment. Now you don't have to turn on the TV tonight!
At the wine shop/bar where I work, we write descriptions for our wines. We've got some awesome ones, I work with some fantastic writers, and our owners are cool people who let us engage our humor and imaginative skills when describing the wines. I've included some of the favorites that I've written below (favorites in that I loooovvveee the wines and/or the descriptions make me laugh). At the end of the descriptions there are wine pairing suggestions, so I am not really leaving you, my dear readers.
I hope you like them.


2004 Baumard Clos du Papillon, Savienneres, Loire Valley, France - Honeyed, floral, and demure one second, flirtatious, steely and acidity-driven the next, the Papillon's as respected for its grace and consistent quality as it is for its shape shifting. This is the best vintage I've tried in the last couple years. The flavors are brighter, the botrytis is more sophisticated, and the butterfly on the label is bigger. Although this bottle promises to show well for the next five or ten years, if you happen to get thirsty one night, this would be lovely sipped while eating an aged goat cheese or a savory coconut milk dish.

2006 Broadley Estate Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon – Convinced that there was a region outside of California where dirt was cheap and Pinot Noir would thrive, the Broadley family left Berkeley in 1980 for Oregon, land of wild fungus and rain. It is their first vineyard that supplies the Pinot (whose fruit has gained terrific depth with age) for this bottle. The lush flavors of cherry, pomegranate, and wild strawberries show alongside Asian spices and orange zest. Go Oregon-style…decant and enjoy with wild mushrooms and mesquite-grilled salmon for dinner.

2003 Ramey Red Blend, Diamond Mountain, Napa, CA
My name is Gordan Gecko, and this is my wine. I don’t need for you to like it, and I don’t need for you to like me. I probably won’t like you. But, if you were to ask for my advice as to what wine to serve when taking over a bank (say in the Southern Hemisphere), and if there was something in it for me, I’d probably tell you to bring this wine to seal the deal. It’s cedary, cassis soaked cheery money notes speak for themself- screams, classy classy, money, old-money. You don’t even need to know what you’re doing. This wine does it for you, like a rich daddy.

Breakfast Wines: Because it's Before Noon Somewhere

I adore that people constantly come in the shop and ask for wine pairing advice. Every day, there will be at least one customer who asks us to pair wine with a dish that I've never even thought about serving with wine, and it couldn't thrill me more.
Then there are the seasonal or frequent requests. During BBQ season, people ask us what to serve with grilled chicken, corn on the cob, or hot dogs. Around Thanksgiving, people wonder what to drink with turkey and sweet potatoes. An every-season, common request is "what wine do I drink with goat cheese," or, "what is a good salmon wine?"
Recently, I've been noticing that one wine pairing request has been solicited from me the most.
That request is, "what should I drink with my eggs in the morning?"
I understand, my dear wine drinkers. One can only drink coffee for so long before it seems dull. Overbearing. Heavy. I'm surprised that you lasted this long.
To this question I answer: sparkling wine. I prefer Champagne myself, which is only made in the Champagne region of France, from Pinot Noir or Chardonnay grapes. I happily sip Prosecco or Cava will dinner or lunch, but breakfast seems to call for something a bit more spectacular. Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day that sets the tone for the following hours, it makes sense to go big. Go French. Go elite.
One of my favorite egg breakfasts, pictured above, is an egg sandwich that my husband makes. His father makes it for him when we visit, and if we have a son, he will probably make it for his loved ones too. Champagne is the perfect match for this sandwich. Rather than overwhelming the lush filling like coffee could do, the bubbles cut some of the fat from the oozing cheese and buttery bread and highlight the overall breakfast egg experience. It's fabulous, and I bet that any egg dish, omlette, quiche, or frittata that you serve will be made more spectacular too, by Champagne, at breakfast time.
Case in point: Here is a picture of my cousin making a breakfast speech while drinking Champagne. She can't help but smile.

Aged Brunello di Montalcino Post 2: Party Wine

An adaption of an article I wrote for my wine bar/shop's newsletter posting, and a continuation of Aged Brunello di Montalcino Post 1, this post is all about food and aged Brunellos. Most wines simmer down as they grow older, taking the time to teach those around them lessons of elegance and grace. Brunellos are different, they don't flaunt thier refinement. They know that they are one of the most dignified wines around, and don't feel the need to tell anyone else. If you have to ask...., they whisper amongst themselves. What aged Brunellos really like to do is to party. With food.

With last month’s Supper Club still fresh in my mind (see my experiments in earlier postings), I’m hesitant to recommend anything other than roasted pork loin, creamy polenta and wild mushrooms with an aged Sangiovese. And nothing else. My gastronomic nostalgia aside, there exist a multitude of wine pairing possibilities for a Brunello, a special clone of Sangiovese.

Sangioveses are excellent food wines. In honor of the wine’s culinary flexibility, you and I are going to throw a four-course dinner party in reverence of the Sangiovese gods. I’ll give you advice about what to cook, and we’ll hold it at your house (because the clean-up is so much easier).

The first course will be an ode to Tuscany. Zuppa di Pane is a traditional Tuscan soup that can be created with a sliced loaf of leftover rustic bread, four or five caramelized onions, and chicken or beef stock (when in dire need, grab a can of unsalted broth). When cooking zuppa di pane, you can go for two different consistencies. One option is to layer the ingredients in a casserole dish and add the liquid to cover and cook in a stove until bubbling. The other route is heat up all ingredients in a pot, then blend until almost smooth in a blender.

Next, we’ll serve room temperature (previously) roasted vegetables with a simple olive oil, thyme and garlic marinade. Throw in an heirloom tomato or two to test the Sangiovese’s reputation of faring well with acid. It can handle it. The manner in which it pairs with the silky vegetables (whose flavors will pop at room temp) will certainly impress our guests.

Now you’ve seen how the Sangiovese pairs magically with a rustic soup, and a light vegetable course, now try it with meat. The dish doesn’t need to be all meat, but that certainly would be lovely too. A thick, one-inch rib eye, cooked Florentine style, grilled with salt and pepper, maybe some rosemary and garlic, would be quite sexy. When my husband and I visited my cousin's house, they poured an awesome Brunello with the steak featured to the left.



It was the thickest steak I've ever seen and it was.... awesome. And huge. If you're not the steak type (sigh), the roasted pork loin featured in an earlier post, or nearly any sultry braised meat shank dish would also be awesome with an aged Brunello. I’d suggest staying away from chicken unless it is in a heavy, coq-au-vin-type dish. Not to be elitist, but the Brunello’s cocoa, berry, rich fig, and licorice nose might be over the lighter poultry’s head.

Finally, I’d finish your dinner party with cheese. A nice Pecorino Toscano, a firmer cheese with a heavier salt content and nutty flavor, set atop a bed of arugula tossed with olive oil would gild the savory courses quite nicely. Certainly there will be dessert, but as proper Sangioveses weren’t brought up with a sweet tooth, I’d suggest switching from the Brunello to a vin santo like Il Ponte California Vin Santo to finish the dinner party. Now we sit back and let the Sangiovese gods enjoy their bounty! Enjoy!

Aged Brunello di Montalcino Post 1

In self-defense, my posting dates have been off, so I've actually been writing less intermittently than it seems. With that out the way, I apologize for the length between my posts. I'm moving from my apartment and am a touch scattered. I'm constantally reminding myself not to start another post, that I've already finished one and just need to post it. Whoops.

The focus of today's post, which was by the way, hiding deep in the depths of my laptop for a week, is Sangiovese. But not just any Sangiovese, the Brunello di Montalcino clone of Sangiovese to be exact. There are millions and millions (or maybe hundreds) of Sangiovese clones out there, each tasting slightly different from the next because of where they're grown. Different nutrients, geography, etc.. produce different grapes.

The Brunello clone of Sangiovese is grown in the town of Montalcino, in Tuscany. With Italian wines, the grape (Brunello) is often listed before the town (Montalcino). When you see Brunello di Montalcino on a label it's like the bottle is saying to you, "Hi, I'm a Brunello grape who grew up in the Montalcino region." I would advise you at this point to politely nod and attempt to move the conversation forward before it starts to tell you about its large extended family and the history behind the lineage moving in different directions. Sangioveses tend to get emotional when they talk aobut thier cousins in Chianti.

And most often, the botle of Brunello that will be sitting on your wine shop's shelf will be around four years old. If it's the year 2007, the bottle will likely read 2003. This is the vintage. You want to either A) buy a Brunello that age or older and decant the hell out of it if you are drinking it soon, or B) buy a younger bottle and cellar it to tame its wild, wild tannins, or B) look for an older Brunello to fully experience what the grape has to offer.

A Brunello such as the 2001 Capanna Brunello di Montalcino, would be a perfect wine to drink now. With food. Which I will divulge in the next posting, coming in three days.

In the meantime, check out this wine grape glossary website: http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineguest/wgg.html#sangiovese.
It's a fantastic website for learning about grape varietals and wine, and has a good write-up on the Brunello clone of Sangiovese.

Next post I'll divulge my wine and food pairing thoughts on this luscious grape (really I'm waiting to find my picture of the aforementioned wine bottle to visually stimulate ya'll through the next post).